Warriorbern on the Move

Day 2 of the GeoNetwork training started off with an introduction to what spatial data are and what file formats these are stored in. It was very tedious because it is old news for me but since only 5 people in the group had used GIS before it was important to explain to everyone else how these things work. Once this aspect was complete we moved back onto the functionalities of the system and we finished the day at 5pm. This week is so easy compared to last week but very different too. The group on the left side of the room The group on the right side of the room James explaining data files to everyone The regional component coordinator and I hatched a plan to go for drinks last night to a really local pub where tourists never go. So we invited everyone along and amazingly we ended up with a group of 10. I think the boredom at the hotel has finally got to everyone! We all trooped off at 7pm and met up at the hotel next to the pub and then marched off to the pub. It was drinks

Phase 2 of the trip started today. As said previously this is a training course on a metadata system called GeoNetwork. It is not a particularly tricky system unless the user is unfamiliar with metadata or geographic information - unfortunately, quite a number in the group are unfamiliar with both so it is slow going. The morning session was just an introduction to GeoNetwork providing information on when and how it was developed, what its functions are and what international metadata standards are used. There seemed to be a problem with the server and so we ended up having to do a local installation of it on our laptops rather than just using the online version. We would have done this anyway so that everyone understood how it works but just did it sooner than expected. The installation was fine for most but those using Windows Vista and browsers other than Internet Explorer experienced some problems. After lunch we were let loose on the program and had to create a complete metada

The trip to Tsavo National Park started with a two hour bus ride (only 100km) that had me thinking back to other bus rides in Tanzania a good decade ago. Although this time I wasn't in a bus which had its body skew on the chassis and the road was not potholed but the journey did involve a lot of hair-raising overtaking. Eventually I put my ipod on and decide to let whatever was to happen, happen without stressing about it. The journey involved a convenient pit stop at a curio stall where we were given more than enough time to use the facilities and browse in the shop - I don't think that anyone bought anything so they lucked out on our group. The group, by the way, consisted of 14 medical students from Sweden on a training course about third world health care systems (like me they had the weekend off), 2 young Kenyan woman whose father had been given a voucher for the safari and set his daughters in his place, and me. About 10 minutes after the leaving the curio shop we arriv

I started the morning off with a real blonde moment! Walked out the door to go to the pool and let the door swing closed behind me. Just one problem though ... I had left the room key inside and it is a Yale lock! So there I was in my swimming costume locked out of my room. Fortunately it was 6am and there were not too many people about in reception where I had to go to get some assistance. After about ten minutes the spare key was tracked down and they let me in to get my key and I could go swimming. I felt like a real idiot though. Work today was a continuation of yesterday's uploading data files. The programmer spent his time last night sorting out the software so that we could access it again. It was a very frustrating exercise once again because the program is very fussy about all sorts of things but the main problem really is my own unfamiliarity with how it works. Once I had it figured out though it was very easy but getting to that point took forever and quite a lot of sw

When I woke up this morning the ocean looked like a lake and the air was so still. It was really beautiful. Later the wind came up and this was a relief after the heat of the last few days. At lunchtime it even looked like we could get a bit of rain but the clouds just passed by. It is supposed to be the rainy season at the moment but the drought is persisting. This morning's session was set aside so that those component coordinators who had not completed their data formatting could do so before we started on the uploading process. All my tables were complete so I spent the morning doing all sorts of other work and the morning seemed to drag on forever. After lunch though we started to learn how to work with the data server and how we have to import our tables. We were then set loose on the server to play around with our data and to figure out how it all worked. The server, however, did not stand up to our efforts and eventually refused to do anything. Fortunately the program

So like the complete nerd that I am I spent Tuesday night finishing off my catch tables instead of going for a drink in the hotel bar. It was time well spent though and yesterday morning I could just finish off the table structure and then concentrate on sorting out the species codes that we will be using. The French contingent decided that they wanted to go to the old part of Mombasa after work to look around so our work day ended at 17:30 for a change. By the time we got back to the hotel and dropped off laptops, etc. it was already dark but we went anyway. We were seven in total with me being the only non-French speaker. I thought that it would be a very long evening of not understanding anything that was said but in the end it was a pleasant evening and I have added some more French words to my very limited vocabulary. We walked down the main road of Mombasa and ended up at Fort Jesus which was unfortunately closed for a private function but it was nice seeing it at night. From t

Today started off well when I snuck into the swimming pool before opening time for a quick few laps. Definitely going to do that again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, etc. until someone chases me out. At the work session we spent the day reformatting endless amounts of data to ensure that we all conform with each other and that the data entry into the system will be as smooth as possible. It has been exhausting and I personally have now stopped work while everyone else is still busy. Our days were supposed to end at 17:30 but yesterday we left at 18:15 and it is now 18:05 and there seems no end in sight. I'm not overly concerned about getting my work done in time since I really just have the catch table to finish and it is about half way there and will be complete tomorrow. No exciting photos today, just two from this mornings work session.

One last trip for the year and I'm sure it is going to be good as I have an excellent little side trip planned for the weekend. After three weeks of rain, the sun finally came out in Durban on the day I left! Something so wrong about that! The flight to Jo'burg was uneventful and I arrived to find my friends, Jo and Diets, waiting for me to meet up for lunch. It was so good seeing them and I spent a little more time with them than I probably should have and by the time I got through security and immigration, I had to dash to get to my boarding gate. Got there just in time but it was well worth seeing Jo and Diets again so I don't mind the run at all. Jo'burg to Nairobi was a bit bumpy in the middle but my anxiety over flying seems to have dissipated somewhat so I was not worried about the turbulence. We arrived in Nairobi 10 minutes early but there was another plane in the regular bay so we had to park miles away from the terminal and hotfoot it across. I made a mad das

The last few days have disappeared in a haze of biomass estimates and yield-per-recruit calculations. It has been very challenging to dredge all these equations out of the recesses of my brain and figure out how to use them properly but I found the sessions both stimulating and rewarding. Overall the course has been great and even the stuff that I did know was presented so well that it was no hardship to listen to it over again. Knut pacing behind the 2 delegates from Comoros. On the social front, I have spent quite a few evenings in the company of the 3 Norwegian course presenters at a couple of the local restaurants within walking distance from the hotel. These evenings have been entertaining and I think saved me from death by boredom. The hotel that we are at is in the middle of the Port Louis CBD and it is apparently not too safe to wander around outside at night alone so I was glad to have 3 male companions to walk around with. They were good company as well as good body guard

Last night I was invited to go out to dinner with the three Norwegians and we went to Chinatown to a nice Chinese restaurant where I had Indian curry! Apparently most restaurants serve a variety of local foods which is great when everyone wants to have different cuisines. The benefit of going to Chinatown as opposed to the waterfront is that the prices are far more reasonable away from the waterfront - sound familiar! The food was good and the company, great. They were also very considerate and very little Norwegian was spoken the whole evening. After dinner, no-one was quite ready to return to the hotel so we ended up at the Keg at the waterfront for Irish coffees. The  four coffees cost almost as much as our entire bill from the Chinese restaurant but they were good. This morning we started on the stock assessment aspect of the course. This is being presented by the latest addition to the Norwegian compliment, Knut Korsbrekke. It was very intense and I had to pay attention a lot mo

After a good night's rest I was bright-eyed, bushy tailed and eagerly anticipating the week ahead. Today we learnt how to write SQL script so that we can design our own queries for extracting data from Nansis. Writing scripts is not my favourite activity but I think with a bit of playing around and working with the data, it will all be ok. During the morning another Norwegian arrived. We have not been formally introduced to him yet, this will happen in the morning. He is here to teach us about doing fish stock assessments which will be good but possibly a little tough too. The poor man has arrived without his luggage courtesy of British Airways. Hopefully he will get his bags before he has to leave again! In the afternoon we had a recap session. It was on the three tricky parts of using Nansis - the installation, exploring a new survey and estimating the biomass of individual and groups of species. It was really hot today and I had my first swim in the hotel pool. It is a tin

This weekend was so busy that there just wasn't enough time to blog so here is the weekend report. On Friday night I went, along with some of the other ladies on course with me, to Mira's house for dinner. It reminded me of how much I love Indian hospitality! Mira is fifth generation Mauritian and very nationalistic but within that has maintained her Indian culture too. We were fed and fed and fed some more. It was all really delicious and a wonderful evening spent chatting about anything and everything. It was also my first encounter with the Mauritian generosity of pouring alcohol. I was given a gin and tonic that was four fingers gin and one finger tonic! This is apparently how they mix there drinks and this was to be reaffirmed on Saturday evening but I will get to that later. It was a very late evening and those of us on the course needed to get some rest as we had class the next morning. Saturday's lessons were about using the data stored in Nansis to investigate th

Just a quick blog today as I have been invited to dinner, along with all the other women on the course, by one of the ladies from the Albion Fisheries Research Centre and there is not much time to blog before going to her house. You may think that may be a lot of people but we are only 6 women in total. Today we did exercises using Nansis to estimate fish biomass from acoustic trawls and fish density estimates using bottom trawl surveys. It was really fun, well for me, since it involves drawing on maps which I enjoy a lot. :-) This just shows the area and trawls used to estimate density of a single species of fish off West Africa. Everyone seems to be in need of a break, it has been a very intense week so far. At least we only have half a day of work tomorrow and then ... IT'S THE WEEKEND BABY!!!!!

After writing the blog last night, I decided that I should do a bit of laundry ... oh boy, I am so not cut out for hand washing clothes! There was water every where by the time I was finished. It also didn't help that there really isn't anywhere to hang anything so more water was added to the floor from the dripping clothes. Initially I thought the water on the floor wouldn't be a problem because there is a drain hole in one corner but the floor doesn't slope towards it so all the water pooled on the other side of the bathroom. Hope it didn't leak into the bathroom below mine. Actually it would serve that guy right because this morning he flicked a match out of his window which got caught in an up draught and landed in my room. Luckily it was no longer burning! Another funny thing this morning was that I had no sooner got out the shower when there was a knock at my door ... the maintenance guy just wanted to check if I had hot water HUH!!!! Was he lurking around i

Our course is structured so that we have lectures in the morning and practical sessions in the afternoon. This is probably a good idea because then there are no sleepers in the room after the three course lunch that we get every day. This morning's theory was about research surveys using trawl nets. It was presented by Tore Strømme who is the Research Coordinator for the EAF Nansen Project which looks after the research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen. His presentation was very comprehensive starting with some background on the previous cruises conducted by the old research vessel (of the same name) and the current vessel. This included an explanation on how the EAF Nansen Project focus has changed over the years from the single species stock assessments to the current methods of undertaking ecosystem approaches to surveys ... hope you have not dropped off to sleep! Once we had all the info on how the ship operates, he started in on trawl surveys proper. This covered a huge range of info